“Yeah, I definitely would agree with that statement,” adds Palm. “It’s grounded in the idea of it being very easy for a new player to understand what to do. So just picking up your miniature, moving it to where you want it, throwing dice, using your card, [making that as] self explanatory as much as we possibly can. Also,” he adds, ”we wanted to make a game that had a lot of combinatorial effects. So, if you go into a room with one shaman who is throwing spells, that’s one thing, but if there is also a bunch of archers there, you will have effects that make the game very, very different each time. We spent a lot of time making sure that [Demeo] has a tremendous amount of replay value. I think it’s a super interesting system that we’ve just started to scratch the surface on. I think that there’s so much you can do here.”
DUNGEON HACK Since Demeo’s release, a release it should be noted was mildly criticised for a lack of content, three modules have been added to the game (The Black Sarcophagus, Realm of the Rat King and Roots of Evil), and such has been the game’s success that more updates are planned for the year ahead. Among them are two new campaigns, a PvP mode and a new standalone version of the game for those without a VR headset. Palm says that the flatscreen version of Demeo will feature an unprecedented level of detail, but perhaps the real highlight of the release next month will be crossplay between VR and regular PC to complement that between Quest and PCVR. The team is also hoping that by releasing on PC without
VR, there will be more mods appearing for the game. “We’ve seen some modding in the VR community,” says Palm, “and I’m hoping a regular flat screen version of Demeo is going to encourage a lot of modders to also get inspired. I think it’s such a great system that could really develop in many different directions.” Even without modders, more people are working on
MCV/DEVELOP game nights will never be the same again
Demeo today than before the game was released, with the team more than twice the size than has worked on any of Resolution’s other games. Despite the scale of development, however, the studio’s approach to making games hasn’t changed. “We try to be extremely agile in our development process,” says Palm. “Everybody plays together, and then we have a very open discussion on what we want to see next. And to me, that’s the best
way of designing. Everybody gets to be a part of the idea generating process, which is extremely satisfying. It makes it much easier to be passionate about the product and feel like you’re part of it.” “But we’re still working in those smaller units,” adds Stenmark, “smaller teams that can make decisions fast. They are cross functional and can sort their own stuff without almost any external input. So we can move very, very fast on generating new content.” “I think part of it is a little bit of a Swedish thing,” says Palm. “We don’t have strong hierarchies. It’s a very flat organisation.”
RIGHT THEN, RIGHT NOW
Despite the success that Resolution has so far enjoyed thanks to it’s long term strategy of bringing more accessible VR games to market, the success of Demeo in particular – the company’s most successful game to date – has prompted some measure of regret that perhaps the team should have embraced the idea of an RPG-style VR board game earlier than it did. “When we started we said that there would be tons of zombie games and horror stuff that other VR developers will make,” says Palm. “So we tried to focus more on things that were more accessible. So, almost all the first year games we did were very, very friendly.” Palm isn’t complaining too loudly, given that many of Resolution’s games are doing better now than when they first came out, plus of course the response to Demeo has been universally positive and the popularity of the game as it nears its first anniversary and the release of the PC edition shows no sign of abating: “We’ve won tonnes of awards from many different places and players are super engaged,” he says. “We’re seeing game session times many times longer than for any of our other games.” Perhaps Demeo hasn’t quite been the second coming of
Wii Sports, but like another significant Nintendo exclusive, it has benefitted from being one of those right games appearing just when it was needed most: A refuge from the lockdowns of the last year that distant friends, old and new, can now forever retreat to. “Yeah, exactly,” says Palm. “It’s just like going to the home of a friend and then playing a really great board game that you really like. It’s that fantastic experience of having the game as a little bit of a social toy or lubricant. And you just sit and have fun together, even if a lot of what you’re doing is just talking.” Too many digital board games focus so much on the
board game itself being right, that the appeal of board gaming is obscured. On the one hand Demeo is proof that if you have a well-designed social space, the game almost doesn’t matter. On the other, the fact that Demeo is itself a very good board game, proves exactly why it matters more.
68 | MCV/DEVELOP March 2022
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
